[22] There are four separate official returns, each showing different figures.
[23] Vide “Population of the Philippines,” Bulletin 1, published by the Department of Commerce and Labour. Bureau of the Census, 1904, Washington.
[24] Under the provisions of Articles XII., XIII. and XIV., Immigration Regulations for the Philippine Islands of June 7, 1899.
[25] Vide, Report of the Municipal Board of Manila for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, p. 32.
Trade and Agriculture Since the American Advent
During the year 1898 there were those who enriched themselves enormously as a consequence of the American advent, but the staple trade of the Colony was generally disrupted by the abnormal circumstances of the period; therefore it would serve no practical purpose to present the figures for that year for comparison with the results obtained in the years following that of the Treaty of Paris.
The tables at the end of this chapter show the increase or decrease in the various branches of export and import trade. Regarded as a whole, the volume of business has increased since the American occupation—to what extent will be apparent on reference to the table of “Total Import and Export Values” at p. [639]. When the American army of occupation entered the Islands, and was subsequently increased to about 70,000 troops, occupying some 600 posts about the Archipelago, there came in their wake a number of enterprising business men, who established what were termed trading companies. Their transactions hardly affected the prosperity of the Colony one way or the other. For this class of trader times were brisk; their dealings almost exclusively related to the supply of commodities to the temporary floating population of Americans, with such profitable results that, although many of them withdrew little by little when, at the close of the War of Independence, the troops were gradually reduced to some 16,000 men, occupying about 100 posts, others had accumulated sufficient capital to continue business in the more normal time which followed. Those were halcyon days for the old-established retailers as well as the new-comers; but, as Governor W. H. Taft pointed out in his report to the Civil Commission dated December 23, 1903,[1] “The natural hostility of the American business men, growing out of the war, was not neutralized by a desire and an effort to win the patronage and goodwill of the Filipinos. The American business men controlled much of the advertising in the American papers, and the newspapers naturally reflected the opinion of their advertisers and subscribers in the advocacy of most unconciliatory measures for the native Filipino, and in decrying all efforts of the Government to teach Filipinos how to govern by associating the more intelligent of them in the Government.... The American business man in the Islands has really, up to this time, done very little to make or influence trade. He has kept close to the American patronage, and has not extended his efforts to an expansion of trade among the Filipinos.... There are a few Americans who have pursued a different policy with respect to the Filipinos to their profit.”
Governor Taftʼs comments were only intended to impress upon the permanent American traders, for their own good, the necessity of creating a new clientèle which they had neglected. The war finished, the wave of temporarily abnormal prosperity gradually receded with the withdrawal of the troops in excess of requirements; the palmy days of the retailer had vanished, and all Manila began to complain of “depression” in trade. The true condition of the Colony became more apparent to them in their own slack time, and for want of reflection some began to attribute it to a want of foresight in the Insular Government. Industry is in its infancy in the Philippines, which is essentially an agricultural colony. The product of the soil is the backbone of its wealth. The true causes of the depression were not within the control of the Insular Government or of any ruling factor. Five years of warfare and its sequence—the bandit community—had devastated the provinces. The peaceful pursuits of the husbandman had been nearly everywhere interrupted thereby; his herds of buffaloes had been decimated in some places, in others annihilated; his apparatus or machinery and farm buildings were destroyed, now by the common exigencies of war, now by the wantonness of the armed factions. The remnant of the buffaloes was attacked by rinderpest, or epizootia, as the Filipino calls this disease, and in some provinces up to 90 per cent. were lost. Some of my old friends assured me that, due to these two causes, they had lost every head of cattle they once possessed. Laudable effort was immediately made by the Insular Government to remedy the evil, for so great was the mortality that many agricultural districts were poverty-stricken, thousands of acres lying fallow for want of beasts for tillage and transport. Washington responded to the appeal for help, and a measure was passed establishing the Congressional Relief Fund, under which the sum of $3,000,000 was authorized to be expended to ameliorate the situation. By Philippine Commission Act No. 738, $100,000 of this fund were appropriated for preliminary expenses in the purchase of buffaloes. Under the supervision of the Insular Purchasing-Agent a contract was entered into with a Shanghai firm for the supply of 10,000 head of inoculated buffaloes to be delivered in Manila, at the rate of 500 per month, at the price of ₱85 per head. An agent was sent to Shanghai with powers to reject unsuitable beasts before inoculation, and the Government undertook to remunerate the contractors at the rate of ₱40 for every animal which succumbed to the operation. The loss on this process was so great that a new contract was entered into with the same firm to deliver in Manila temporarily immunized buffaloes at the rate of ₱79 per head. On their arrival the animals were inspected, and those apparently fit were herded on the Island of Masbate for further observation before disposing of them to the planters. The attempt was a failure. Rinderpest, or some other incomprehensible disease, affected and decimated the imported herds. From beginning to end the inevitable wastage was so considerable that up to November 20, 1903, only 1,805 buffaloes (costing ₱118,805) were purchased, out of which 1,370 were delivered alive, and of this number 429 died whilst under observation; therefore, whereas the price of the 1,805 averaged ₱65 per head, the cost exceeded ₱126 per head when distributed over the surviving 941, which were sold at less than cost price, although in private dealings buffaloes were fetching ₱125 to ₱250 per head (vide Buffaloes p. [337], et seq.). Veterinary surgeons and inoculators were commissioned to visit the buffaloes privately owned in the planting-districts, the Government undertaking to indemnify the owners for loss arising from the compulsory inoculation; but this has not sufficed to stamp out the disease, which is still prevalent.
Another calamity, common in British India, but unknown in these Islands before the American advent, is Surra, a glandular disease affecting horses and ponies, which has made fatal ravages in the pony stock—to the extent, it is estimated, of 60 per cent. The pony which fully recovers from this disease is an exceptional animal. Again, the mortality among the field hands, as a consequence of the war, was supplemented by an outbreak of Cholera morbus (vide p. [197]), a disease which recurs periodically in these Islands, and which was, on the occasion following the war, of unusually long duration. Together with these misfortunes, a visitation of myriads of locusts (vide p. [341]) and drought completed the devastation.
Consequent on the total loss of capital invested in live-stock, and the fear of rinderpest felt by the minority who have the wherewithal to replace their lost herds, there is an inclination among the agriculturists to raise those crops which need little or no animal labour. Hence sugar-cane and rice-paddy are being partially abandoned, whilst all who possess hemp or cocoanut plantations are directing their special attention to these branches of land-produce. Due to these circumstances, the increased cost of labour and living in the Islands since the American advent, the want of a duty-free entry for Philippine sugar into the United States, the prospective loss of the Japanese market,[2] the ever-accumulating capital indebtedness, and the need of costly machinery, it is possible to believe that sugar will, in time, cease to be one of the leading staple products of the Islands.